As a frequent flyer and traveler I find the biggest impediment to travel is deciding what to do with my little friend Ichigo, she has been with us for Five years now since we adopted her in Tokyo and brought her back to the US with us, sadly I couldn’t sign her up for her own Frequent Flyer program or she would have been well on her way to United Silver Status after that first long flight.
We started out by relying on friends and family for puppy sitting, however, when you travel as frequently as we do it quickly becomes old when you call up to see if they want to look after the dog for the weekend, or week, or as we did recently, over a fortnight when we went on the tour of the Maldives, Sri Lanka and Tokyo. So when we found DogVacay.com we were very happy to have the chance to have someone look after Ichigo without further straining our relationships.
Dogvacay was founded in 2012 by a Husband and Wife team in California. They founded it on a principle that I love; they wanted to find a solution to board their puppies in a home with real people, rather than at a kennel. Prior to looking at DogVacay our only options were to board with other dogs in a Kennel (sometimes these places don’t supervise at night) or use Family and Friends.
Dogvacay is simple to use, you can check availability just like you would a Hotel, and you get to pick the person you would work with based upon their Bio on the site; we always go for people without other dogs living in the home, as Ichigo might play up, and who are happy to administer Oral Meds as she takes a pill daily with her food.
From there, you can select different price points, and agree to a Puppy ‘Meet and Greet’ before making a commitment to that person, if they seem off, then you can pick someone else, to date we have used 5-6 different people and they have all been awesome. The only reason we tried different people is that since it launched we have found new boarders who are even closer to home, and sometimes people are prebooked so we need to look elsewhere.
Prices range from $15 per night, up to $100 (which I do think is a bit cheeky) but we have found great people in the $15-$40 range and are very pleased with the website and the individuals who host Ichigo. They tend to be people who love dogs, but don’t want to get their own again right now due to the long term commitment they require, so you getting a dog lover, your dog gets spoiled with love (like when a kid visits the grandparents for a weekend) and you get to travel knowing they are in safe hands.
Ichigo is a lovely dog, very affectionate, and great with people… however she is also something of a Prima Donna when it comes to other dogs and likes her own space. We simply weren’t comfortable leaving her in an environment where other dogs were there, and supervision was questionable.
Dogvacay has been a life saver for us, we’re already booked up for next weekend when we head down to Atlantic City for a relaxing time at the Waterclub Spa, whilst Puppy gets her own DogVacay with our new neighbor, just up the street from us in Brooklyn.
Find out more about them here https://dogvacay.com/
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